In the logo and fashion design commentariat, much press has been devoted to the recent and clear trend of established, iconic fashion companies rebranding themselves with plain, sans-serif lettering, moving away from the classic forms of Roman, serif letters. A defection to an enemy country!

At first glance this hardly matters to our lives, and can be dismissed as designerly passion. But it may tell us something about how we relate to visual branding, among the most defining features of the landscape of modernity—just look around you. The Deep Design of the issue requires us to interpret and appreciate the hype, consider some explanations, and calm some fevers. And stir a sprig of speculation in to the pot.

The littlest of these little things is the serif—those little feet at the ends of letters in some typefaces of Latin alphabets like English. Even the smallest serif effectively alters the appearance of the letter. These typefaces, also called serifs, have dominated printed communication for 400 years. You are reading one such typeface (on the paper, not on the website).

the serif—those little feet at the ends of letters in some typefaces of Latin alphabets like English

Typefaces without these serifs, or ‘sans-serifs’, or just ‘sans, tend to dominate screens. I wrote this on a computer, viewing my words in Arial, a typeface typophilic snobocrats love to hate. They first appeared in the 1700s, but only really found their stride in the 20th century.

Apart from the serif itself, serif typefaces are also distinguished by an obvious thick-to-thin variation in their strokes, known by the trade term ‘contrast’. Sans-serifs have very little contrast, as if the letter were drawn with a single line, giving it the name ‘lineal’ in the trade.

With this primer, let’s look at these examples.

These great fashion brands originated in the Old World of Europe. They were led by individual creators who lent it their vision and name, which bore connections to aristocracy. Those identities, and the lettering they wore, came from a high-ceilinged world of pedigree, tradition and antiquity, the kind of place where a butler announced your presence upon placing, on his salver, a calling-card (the ancestor of the business card ritual).

These great fashion brands originated in the Old World of Europe. They were led by individual creators who lent it their vision and name, which bore connections to aristocracy. 

That’s why the arrival of Calvin Klein on the scene marked a distinctly American, or New World gatecrashing. In 1979, its logo represented a distinctly New York flavour, with its geometric sans serif typeface breaking away from the modern fashion lettering code, influenced by Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue mastheads. So perhaps these new logos also acknowledge the end of an European reign and bow to a new internationalism.

The new brands also convey the end of a lineage: As Jean-Noel Kapferer puts it, a true brand is born when its creator dies. A new label also satisfies the obsessive need to be in the conversation, to signal the arrival of a new creative boss, and a break from the past. In this sense, the new sans-serif lettering washes away the brand’s past, leaving a clean canvas for its future. Neutrality is in play, to open new doors to the mind.

It wasn’t a sudden realisation of age that drove the change, a quality many modern brands wear proudly. For one, not all the lettering has aged. Burberry’s could be quite serviceable today. Balenciaga’s was already a sans-serif, but morphed into a serif typeface that’s unexceptional to the point of anonymity. YSL retired its quirky lettering, already a sort of modern design classic, for another bog-standard sans in a black square: more Silicon Valley startup than to Parisian couture.

A functionalist explanation is their superior rendering in digital media. But their suitability for lower (though rapidly increasing) resolution screens makes more sense when one considers how the modern fashion brand makes money.

For these brands, the large volume sales of ready to wear, T shirts, shoes, and accessories offsets the low-volume and high cost business of couture, ramp shows and new collections: design, R&D and publicity cost a lot. Lineal lettering reproduces well on canvas, plastic, and leather things, where the logo’s presence earns a clear premium (20%, according to one brand)

A neutral brandmark allows for greater range: the old Balmain logo may not sit well on a T-shirt. The neutrality of these letterforms, stripped away of their distinguishing detail, is an advantage.

Further, these spin-offs are less crucial to the brand’s expression, and accordingly can bend more to popular trends and wearability. A neutral brandmark allows for greater range: the old Balmain logo may not sit well on a T-shirt. The neutrality of these letterforms, stripped away of their distinguishing detail, is an advantage.

Indeed this neutrality is also at the root of the philosophy that underlies modernism in design. This is the notion of modern design as a container rather than a design in itself, able to host any stylistic variation.

More generally, the modernism that these logos wear may also be part of a democratising process for brands. With the internet ensuring the death of authority as a marketing position, more brands attempt to invoke the regular-guy archetype and don’t talk down to us. Brands need to engage with contemporary ethical issues in the way shown by Benetton (yes, in a sans). In like vein, the distaste for overblown consumerism has moved from the trendy sidelines to a more mainstream thing.

These new logos also signal the declining importance of a single, unitary mark to brands that rely so much on controlling the spaces where they sell. Products must make a mark on their own, and the logo adorns it, rather than carry the burden of encapsulating all the brand’s meaning. Homogeneity is a risk. Finally, decoupling the logo from the brand’s heritage also disengages it from continuity, and more rapid reinvention will be the order of the day. Not such a little thing.

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First published in a slightly modified form ‘Little Typefaces Matter Much’ in Business Standard, 18 February in Deep Design, a fortnightly column by Itu Chaudhuri.

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The success of a name comes from its instant memorability. When it precedes the product or brand experience, it creates an expectation of a certain quality or personality. It prods the instinct, provokes a reaction and directs curiosity. This is triggered by the sound of the name, by employing the appropriate use of phonetic aesthetic.

What are Names Made of?

The Sound of Names

Certain sounds have phonetic properties that appeal to deep-set instinct. The name Google, we argue, has less to do with its derivation from the googol (a very large employing known only to math-heads) and more to do with its resemblance to a baby’s blabber (known to every human). It is clear that the Google identity wears the visage of a curious child by using primary colours and basic shapes that cloaks its world-dominating, and some say sinister ambitions, with a childlike personality.

Similarly, culture (the noise through which the name passes from sender to receiver) can influence how we process a name. Take the case of the brand of mashed instant potato mix we named Vegit. Its brevity incites immediate action–do we hear ‘Just do it’ somewhere? It beckons the consumer to listen to his hunger and act on it instantly, no instruction manual required. The name semantically and phonetically suggests efficiency.

Similarly, a name like Inme immediately paints a picture of a confident but naive, childlike presence. Inme is a pioneer in the summer-camp business in India and they speak of the uniqueness of every child. The name is a simple utterance, designed as self-directed positive rhetoric that is meant to echo in every child—I have [desirable trait] in me!

Making Meaning

But this is not to say that the deeper meanings associated with names don’t work their effect. A name like Vrixa (our name for a human-resources-focused technology fund) has all the phonetic intent to turn heads, as also the x, which phonetically suggests efficiency. It’s a playful take on the Sanskrit ‘vriksha’ meaning tree, because tree names are beloved of venture capital firms, which need to suggest stability and growth at once. By astutely addressing this dimension the name first sets and later entrains a customer’s expectations.

Think Global, Say it Local

Local cues can make brands seem closer and more recognisable. For example the name Minute Khana addresses the ambitions and concerns of a modern homemaker who loves the convenience of ready-to-eat food but also finds the idea alien. While the quickness and convenience is implicit in Minute, it is the Hindi word ‘khana’ which alludes to a wholesome Indian meal that inspires her to include this product in her kitchen.

Another example is our name for Haldiram’s triangular nachos-like chips. Panga, an untranslatable slang usage in Hindi (roughly, a casual confrontation) phonetically echoes the sharp taste and angular shape of the product, giving it the edge of a light-hearted confrontation; not quite playing nice, but always with a wink.

Despite the enthusiastic allusions to tradition and local aesthetics, sometimes it serves the brand to avoid parodying its own culture. Haldiram’s foray into South Indian snacks was done with poise: our name Southern Delights, exemplifies southern restraint as it purveys ‘murukku’ to the North. Yet it has the sound of a small-town eatery that the Indian ear will pick up.

Constraints

…can often be the stimulus for innovation.

Design begins with empathetic conversation, but awkward situations arise when clients have preferences for particular sounds or letters based on feng-shui, astrology or vaastu. Clearly, the High Tech Robotic Systemz, looking to rebrand, needed to communicate their expertise more succinctly without compromising on its youthful energy. But there was a caveat— the name had to be numerologically sound and begin with the ‘th’ sound. We settled on Thebo, suggestive of a robotic pet (and rhyming with ro-bo, as robot was sometimes pronounced).

When the couture brand Ashima Leena decided to launch a pret line, as a daughter brand, it was to be similar in spirit but different in form. It required a link to the established original but also the freedom to be itself. The name Alias neatly resolves the contradiction. Embedded within the name is the abbreviation AL—a cheeky nod to the original brand Ashima Leena. To visually articulate this lineage, the logo itself carries the letters A and L from the Ashima Leena logo and completes the heist.

The Visual Word

Words are heard, and read; but they are also seen. And the way they are spelt or graphically represented augments the force with which they are read or heard. Our name for Haldiram’s healthy ‘namkeen’ snacks Snac Lite economically uses two syllables, doing away with the k to accentuate its ‘liteness’.

Vrixa’s identity also visually buttresses the sound of the x. The sound and look are simultaneous: they are synesthetic, or sensed together in a way that can’t be pried apart. The x marks the spot, and the x multiplies, as the tagline “HR x tech” implies.

Atomistic Naming

The phonetic, semantic and graphic aspects of a name are the ways in which minds, ears and eyes can be drawn to a name. But whole words are not necessary, nor always ideal. The use of word fragments can lend flexibility and precision. From these atomistic units, a new compound can occur, much like a chemist creates one in her lab. Vegit, encountered earlier, is one such.

A fragment can work on its own, too. Exper is our name for a leadership development firm that trains senior, junior or mid-level teams. Their methods involve no classrooms, but are experiential, their advice backed by the experience of the trainers as businessmen, as they help leaders maximise their expressive potential for exponential benefits. Apart from the extensions it suggests, the truncated word fragment Exper is a phonetic exhalation, a whisper, thus achieving a lightness that wholly befits the brand.

However, the best cases are when the chemist has creative influence over the goal of the experiment itself. Read on.

Integral Design

Not always does identity design influence the ethos of a brand. But when it does, the brand’s identity and ethos seem inextricably intertwined, making a telling and authentic statement. A new design school was to be positioned as a Master’s course at the center of design thinking, helping students tackle real world issues through design methods. The brand implores designers to grapple with the complex interactions of society, economy and technology. The name School of Integral Design is just as unassuming as it is profound. It communicates the serious intent of the school clearly by integrating the ethos into its name. The skeletal visual identity echoes this by revealing its structure while allowing ample room for creative play.

The Opportunity

The potency of a name must not be understated; it is the irreducible expression of a brand’s values. At ICD we encourage clients to invest time and effort in naming so that the brand and the consumer are coupled in text, speech and graphic. And in meaning: the word ‘logo’ is derived from the Greek ‘logos’ meaning ‘word’, and also ‘reason’ or ‘meaning’. Identity starts here: a name that points to its logos, and its ethos at the same time.

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Everyone loves a logo, or loves to hate one. Designing logos is the most easily understood example of the graphic designer’s work. Among the additions to visual culture since the 19th century, the logo ranks with television and cinema. Stand in Tokyo’s Ginza or New York’s Times Square and you will be overrun by them; in India, we experience a booming town through the sprouting of familiar logos on its streets.

Yet the logo is under attack. Dead, say bolder commentators, or irrelevant, say the more nuanced: it is a product of evolution, and eligible for extinction. The London designer Simon Manchipp found them “a hangover from old-school thinking… an old-fashioned approach to differentiating”.

Ironically, to the extent that this view is valid, the logo is under threat from the same processes that made it so successful in the first place. Though logos are ancient in the sense of marks that denoted community (the cross, the shaivite tripundara or the swastika), the modern logo is a creation of trade, media and transportation.

Trade and modern transportation ended local monopolies: suddenly, the village washing-soap maker was competing with imports from another district, and needed more than his initials on the product. Traders (wholesalers and retailers), being closer to the eventual customers, had bullying rights over manufacturers. These gents fought back with differentiated products, now with ‘maker’s marks’, regaining control over the customer and thus, terms of trade. These marks became the modern brand logo. (The tussle continues; the behemoth Amazon is a retailer).

Advertising speeded and sharpened the change in the design of these marks to answer the need for visibility, compactness and differentiation. It’s easy to make too little of the difference between these new logos and, say, the coats-of-arms and heraldry of earlier centuries. Those early marks served to identify, a deliberate act accomplished by reference to convention. In the modern mark, recognition, a more spontaneous form of knowing, along with ownability and recall, that marketer’s favourite, are additionally necessary.

Those early marks served to identify. In the modern mark, recognition, along with ownability and recall

By the middle of the 20th century, the power of the visual trade mark was firmly acknowledged, and the forerunners of the modern brand consulting firms were born. The logo became big business, a store of both value as well as meaning. This is where things started to change.

This turn in the logo’s fortunes was linked to the evolution of the language of marketing, and then a new understanding of the brand, approximately in the last quarter of the 20th century. The brand was now not just the name of the business, but an evocation of new ideas—benefits, values, promises and other more or less emotional fragments, tied by association to its name and other ‘signifiers’, like the logo. Oh, and It had a personality, like a human.

The logo’s fortunes was linked to the evolution of the language of marketing, and then a new understanding of the brand

This bundle was, said the gurus, at once embedded in the product or business and also, separately, an abstraction, capable of being explicitly managed, and concretised at will, into an entirely different product, again a late 20th century phenomenon. It gave rise to a new notion of the corporate brand, now as progenitor of brands, and thus to the concept of brand architecture. Also, the brand could also now be separately valued as an asset.

This complexity now required the logo to distill this bundle of properties, and made it a strategic decision: big business for consultants. But this wasn’t all.

New, geographically dispersed brands, including the modernised corporate brand (so went the thinking) now needed a consistent visual appearance, implemented via a centrally mandated visual system: a set of graphic assets, such as colours, and typefaces and added graphics, governed by rules for correct usage.

Crucially, corporate and other brand owners were convinced that these visual systems were also central to the bundle of associations that made up its brand, this new, mystically powerful lever. In other words, not just visually consistent but ideationally and emotionally linked—enter another new word, coherent.

Over the next decades, these visual systems grew in sophistication and ingenuity. In addition to ensuring recognition, they now cover the style of imagery, and the mood of the communications, across product design, retail spaces, advertising and more. Often not rigidly consistent like their forebears, they may go by names like ‘brand world’ or ‘experience’. The argument: sufficiently well executed, brand worlds obviate the need for a logo, while still delivering a powerful whiff of the brand, so to speak.

These visual systems grew in sophistication and ingenuity. Sufficiently well executed,brand worlds obviate the need for a logo, while still delivering a powerful whiff of the brand

There’s another strand to the anti-logo argument. Logos, by themselves, have no meaning, but derive it from the businesses they mark. Mercedes’ three-pointed star gets its value from the consistently admired cars it sits atop, not the other way around. So why bother with the hype and fuss of designing them to distill the brand into the logo?

We can see these as a clash between two notions: brand as experience, vs brand as a symbol. Deep Design believes that the brand-as-symbol perspective is under-appreciated.
Symbols, as carriers of identity are inseparable from human life, from tribe to kingdom, ancient to modern. And all aspects of brand experience—even the taste of Johnny Walker whisky—whisper to our identity (and are thus signs). Taste is sensory, but also associative, and there’s neurological evidence for this: it just tastes better with the label.

Second, symbols such as logos focus organisational and social energies, by substituting a physical thing for an idea that must be defended, in war or in peace. Most of all, a logo can travel from the bonnet of a Mercedes car to an advertisement, and trigger the same feelings with incredible economy of time and space. Of course, there’s no doubt that it’s a part of a ‘brand world’.

But why design them, if any old logo will do? Because it’s easier to build an association when the logo’s content encourages it. Laboratory-reared monkeys have been trained to ignore snakes and fear flowers, but it’s far harder to do than the converse.

It’s easier to build an association when the logo’s content encourages it

Does the logo rank with television? Just look out of the window: far from a burial, the party is in full swing.

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It was a film-maker friend on the phone.

“I’m making a film,” he said, “on a new script that’s been developed for the Wancho language, spoken in Arunachal Pradesh. Right up your street.”

Perhaps my friend was referring to my interest in typeface design? But my friend, aware of the distinction between the script (a way of writing) and typefaces (their printed form), went on, “The script itself has never been professionally examined. So I thought you might want to. Or is it linguists who look at such things?”.

I replied that I wasn’t aware of anyone who evaluated scripts, perhaps because they are handed down to us, and shaped by the same evolutionary processes that shape languages. (Imagine giving a Devanagari a B-).

Scripts, are handed down to us, and shaped by the same evolutionary processes that shape languages…

But to a designer, a synthetically developed script like Wancho presents a fascinating opportunity to develop criteria for evaluation. For instance, if ease of learning is an objective, we might ask of a modern script to represent related sounds with similar shapes (not significantly implemented in Wancho, as I found out). There could be others.

Design starts with why: why Wancho needs a script at all. I asked — and that’s when the penny dropped. The rest of this column is mainly about what I didn’t tell him, and a little of what I did.

The Wancho are a hill tribe, related to the Naga. About 50000 people speak Wancho, one of tens of Tibeto-Burman languages that dot the north-east and surrounds; none has a script. Wancho now does, thanks to the 11-year labours of Banwang Losu, a Wancho teacher.

The Wancho script, it was explained, is needed to capture Wancho’s phonetic peculiarities. The script, once established, would help preserve the entirely oral traditions (lore, prayer, song) of the Wancho and save the language from extinction.

But Wancho is unwritten, not for want of a script but for want of a culture of literacy. Such little Wancho as is written relies on Devanagari and Latin. Latin, an alphabetic script, serves, with small modifications, nearly all European, South American and modern African languages. And Arabic with local modifications has done duty for centuries, for 60+ languages. Phonetic functionality is moot: pronunciation is taught, written conventions learnt.

But the Wancho script is an original work, not a modification. Its need to exist comes from an assertion of Wancho’s membership among the comity of languages. In a uniquely modern moment, it has, since its inception in 2014, gained a typeface, designed by Anurag Gautam, a student at the National Institute of Design (NID); an animated primer on YouTube (by the first Wancho animator, Wangdan Wampan, also from NID) and a book by Losu on the same subject available on Amazon. In an instant, the Wancho language becomes, at least to its own users, more important than others in its neighborhood.

Wancho is an invention, but entirely synthetic and does not claim to be derived from antiquity. Yet it shares some of the same motivations with ‘invented traditions’, an idea popularised by E. J. Hobsbawm and T.O. Ranger. Their best known example is the invention of a Scottish ‘highland’ tradition: the adoption of the kilt, till then worn by farmers, as aristocratic wear, appropriately styled and accessorised. Along with bagpipers and the assignment of tartan weaves to aristocratic clans (rather than just regions) a visual toolbox became available to construct and give a visual face to a Scottish national identity. As a parallel, imagine the male Punjab government ministers turning out in Bhangra costume as if it were the way it always was.

Wancho is an invention, but entirely synthetic and does not claim to be derived from antiquity. Yet it shares some of the same motivations with ‘invented traditions’

The marketing significance of this invented tradition is immense. It enabled the promotion of ‘authentically traditional Scottish products, like its whisky which rose to prominence around the same time (the 18th and 19th centuries). The ‘rougher liquors of Scotland’ were promoted as the libation of choice of England’s aristocrats, perhaps sped along by Queen Victoria’s love for Scottish fashion.

the invention of a Scottish ‘highland’ tradition: the adoption of the kilt… Along with bagpipers and the assignment of tartan weaves…a visual toolbox to construct and give a visual face to a Scottish national identity.

Marketers love invented traditions: many sorts of mass-market food and alcohol products among others, pretend to some form of tradition, however spurious. Consumption rituals are often invented, and grown, by coopting what some consumers do and teaching it to the rest: drinking Corona beer requires the piece of lime wedged into its neck (Tastes better? Sure. All rituals enhance consumption). Don’t ever wash, or mend your Levi’s (creating a market for faux-distressed jeans). Even major religions coopt and re-make traditions.

Marketers love invented traditions: many sorts of mass-market food and alcohol products among others, pretend to some form of tradition, however spurious.

Paradoxically, all traditions are invented (and re-invented) at some point of time. If the Wancho script beats the odds and survives, it will become a tradition in twenty years. No other script seems to have managed the feat in this century. Well, not quite: Klingon, the fictional language of the Klingon people in the Star Trek movies of the 1970s and 80s was invented with a vocabulary and a grammar to give realism to the dialogue. Fans have extended it become a spoken language, complete with songs, poetry, and a script, even a language institute.

Like with Klingon, the written script is a particularly potent library of symbols—letters—around which the community can cohere and belong everyday, whether the language is fictional or real. Eventually it’s about an identity more than the survival of a language. The historian Benedict Anderson argues that modern nationhood has much to do with the merger of print technology and capitalism: the rise and standardisation of a local language, in all its uses.

Identity is a master-concept in design, marketing, politics and culture. Identities are not simply national, ethnic or linguistic: ‘authentic Corona drinker’ is a tag I can add on top. Modernity seems to compel the formation of these temporary and multiple identities, to re-balance a felt lack or anxiety; it seems to show them up in its complex and furious stride. Visual symbols buttress identity; so we attach ourselves to symbols, collecting, burnishing and drawing meaning from them.

Modernity seems to compel the formation of these temporary and multiple identities…Visual symbols buttress identity; so we attach ourselves to symbols…

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In India, the notion of the brand is both nascent and spreading at a gallop. States, NGOs, government bodies, spiritual leaders, cricket teams, and other once-unlikely entities are starting to receive marketing attention, so the brand is never far behind. It’s the new orthodoxy.

University brands, an oxymoron in India until the 1990s, are a fascinating example. They are numerous, often very old, and slow to change, and display, like species, many stages of evolution. This is reflected in their visual identities.

Of course, there’s much more to a brand than the logo, which is only the tip of the brand’s iceberg, so to speak. But it is a tell-tale sign of how an organisation sees itself, and the face it wants to show.

Deep Design reveals the interplay of symbol and reality and the invisible hand of evolution. We shall consider two epochs, the shift (in India) occurring in the late 20th century.

For 150 years, university identities followed an internationally prescribed code. The words seal, insignia or emblem come to mind. A circular typographic arrangement, or the ever-present shield serves as a container. The contents picture symbols of learning, or subjects of study. Shields, divided in a medieval manner, allow a set of images, rather than a unitary symbol.

For 150 years, university identities followed an internationally prescribed code

Like Olympic games symbols up to 1952, they were more traditional than the period warranted, and designed to look like authoritative insignia of learning (with Indian or other local inflections). This applied even when universities displayed modernity in other ways, like architecture. IIM Ahmedabad is housed in a famed modernist masterpiece, but its logo defers to the code: a Mughal arch and tendrils.

Privatisation is the lens through which the evolution of university identity, visual and non-visual is understood. Let’s use 1995 as a convenient year, when the first private university was notified. There are now over 200.

Privatisation is the lens through which the evolution of university identity, visual and non-visual is understood.

University identities after 1995 are visibly different from their forbears. There’s more variety and individuality, and some modernist simplification. The best attempts look more like modern logos, not insignia. Look, no privatisation! Case solved?

Not entirely. Many, like Amity (a prototypical private university) sport logos that reek strongly of the older code. And even in the previous age, there were privately funded and managed colleges and universities (BITS Pilani, for example). The name Ivy League (ivy climbing up those centuries-old stone walls), brands a club of old, influential universities that retain links to their heritage identities, a code imitated by several US universities.

So are university logos explained as effectively by period (design fashion), and imitation, as by private ownership? To gain more nuance than these hardy perennial explanations provide, we must return to the founding concept of the university, which is the archetypal ideal that we hold in our minds.

The oldest (let’s call them Classical) universities predate modern states though they enjoyed royal and religious support. A community of wise men, either proven or incipient seekers, self-governed, with their own rules, traditions and arcana, and free from excessive oversight. Often monastic in origin and spirit, joined by the pursuit of knowledge, for its own sake.

The oldest universities are often monastic in origin and spirit, joined by the pursuit of knowledge, for its own sake.

Modern states preserved the essentials of this arrangement, even for private universities in the new nation of America. These old universities approximate classical ones (and receive state support with minimal oversight).

The post-private university or PPU (a new phenomenon needs a new label) differs on many of these dimensions. It no longer lurks in the shadows of the state, but feels the harsh glare of competition, not of ideas, but for customers. Global rankings objectivise and hijack the meaning of institutional quality.

The post-private university feels the harsh glare of competition, not of ideas, but for customers.

For the first time, the university must be marketed. It is a product with a proposition for customers (students, donors, and faculty). In many PPUs, students rather than pursuing knowledge for its own sake, are buying a career. ROI calculations are openly made.

Its superboss may be an ‘edupreneur’ who exhorts a Chief Marketing Officer to achieve explicit business objectives. Annual ad spends may top Rs. 50 cr. Crucially, the PPU is managerially run, like a corporation, and thus not entirely collegially governed. (On the plus side, some academic staff may much better paid).

It’s natural then, that the university’s logo needs to maximise visibility, memorability, compactness and attractiveness, that is, more like a modern logo rather than a seal. It is an object of universal, accessible appeal, not a depiction of an immovable ideal. It’s corporate identity, and in some cases, literally so.

Despite this pressure to market and brand, the identities of many Indian PPUs, unlike their Western cousins, are ungainly vestiges of colonial codes or confused hybrids. Not for want of funds, but of vision.

Most PPUs start with a deficit of reputation. The logo (along with copious built infrastructure, in some cases) attempts to compensate by evoking antiquity. It’s an attempt to brand by association with the classical university and channel its trust, authenticity and experience.

Too few have the confidence to assert a fresh path, by conspicuous investment in wise men, or a long term program of excellence.

Two exceptions, among others, are Ashoka and Nalanda, who have made the former investment. I mention them because their names place them in ancient antiquity, rather than in the colonial past, and their identities are coherent with modernity.

It’s not inconceivable that these post-private pressures will apply to classical universities, who may compete for funds if not for students’ fees, as in the West.

University brands need to forget markers of antiquity, and express the values which make the old fellows relevant in modern times.

A university draws its credibility from research that seeks the truth on subjects of unchanging and ancient interest. That’s a philosophical standard that is universal, permanent and non-differentiable. University brands need to forget markers of antiquity, and express the values which make the old fellows relevant in modern times. Adopting a few of those values will be differentiation enough.

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